Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at the 52nd Kopan Course, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2019. Photo by Neal Patrick.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this advice for a practice to do for world peace in June 2004.

My dear Dharma brothers and sisters,

It looks like there could be a lot of violence happening in Iraq.

It comes out very beneficial if people read the Golden Light Sutra at least 1,000 times and dedicate it for peace in Iraq and the rest of world. This will at least reduce the killing and suffering.

The holy Sutra of Golden Light is the king of the sutras (Ser.ö dam.päi do wang.gyi gyälpo). It is extremely powerful and fulfills the wishes, as well all the peace and happiness, of all sentient beings, up to enlightenment. It is also powerful for world peace, your own protection, and the protection of your country and the world. Also, it has great healing power for people in the country, even if only one person reads it.

I am offering my suggestion for people who desire peace for themselves and for others. This is the spiritual, or Dharma, way to bring peace that doesn’t require you to harm others, doesn’t require you to criticize others or even to demonstrate against others, yet can accomplish peace. So I hope some people, Buddhists and even non-Buddhists who desire world peace, will read this text.

This also protects individuals and the country from what are labeled natural disasters—of the wind element, fire element, earth element, and water element—such as earthquakes, floods, cyclones, fires, tornadoes, etc. They are not natural, because they come from causes and conditions that make dangers happen. They come from past inner negative thoughts and actions of people, and external conditions. Their creation is not natural, it happens from our own side.

So here, I would like to make this request with my two palms together to please recite the Sutra of Golden Light for world peace as much as you can.

Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers,
Lama Zopa

Find resources on the Golden Light Sutra and links to the sutra in fifteen languages:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/sutras/golden-light-sutra/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Putting up prayer flags, New Mexico, US, 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

“When there was unceasing war in Kham (Me Nyak), Tibet, and nobody was able to create harmony, the Great Lord Yogi (Thang Thong Gyalpo) came to Kham, generated bodhichitta, and just by merely saying these true words and sprinkling flowers, all the vicious minds (jealousy and anger) were completely pacified and the war that had been continuous, ceased. There were prosperous harvests and so forth. The country became auspicious and peaceful. This is blessed vajra speech,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche said as preface to his translation of a prayer by the great tantric yogi Thang Thong Gyalpo.

“… Through whatever merits have come from making this translation available, may wherever this text is (whichever country) and also by reading this prayer, cause all the people’s hearts be filled with loving kindness, bodhichitta, and the thought to only benefit and not harm. May the sun of peace and happiness arise and may any wars that are happening stop immediately. May there be harmony, peace, and may there never be war or violence again.” Rinpoche made this translation of Thang Thong Gyalpo’s “Prayer for Peace” after the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001 in the United States.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche observes while incense offerings are made while new prayer flags are hung, Taos, New Mexico, August 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

HERE ARE THE WORDS OF TRUTH PACIFYING THE DANGERS OF WEAPONS

OM MANI PADME HUM

Great Loving Victorious One (Maitreya Buddha), Transcendental Sublime Compassionate Eye Looking One,
Wrathful Victorious Hayagriva, Fully Accomplished Totally Pure (Jetsun) Tara and so forth,
Merely hearing your holy names eliminates all dangers,
Objects of refuge in the nature of compassion, please pay attention!

When the sentient beings of the time of quarreling and five degenerations
By the explosion of the great ocean of evil karma and jealousy
Are tormented by the intensive suffering of fighting and quarreling
Please dry this up by the power of transcendental wisdom and compassion.

By letting great rainfalls of the nectar of loving kindness fall
On the migratory beings who are inflaming the conflagration of hatred-fire
Please grant blessings with the recognition of each other like father-mother
Then increase happiness and auspiciousness.

May the multitudes of the vicious evil spirits
Who enter the mental continuum and
Change it instantly to the mind of asura
From now on never run in this area (country/world).

I am requesting for even all the sentient beings who have died in the war
To abandon from that time onward all the evil karma, cause and effect,
Then having entered and been born in the Blissful Field (Amitabha’s Pure Land)
To lead all others to that Pure Land.

Please bless all those who are born and die (samsaric beings)
To have a long life, no sicknesses, to pacify all quarreling and fighting,
Enjoy the ten virtues, have rainfall at the right times, always have good harvests
And for all the habitat and inhabitants to be auspicious and increase.

By the ultimate reality which is pure by nature,
By phenomena having ultimate reality, cause and result are unbetrayable,
And by the compassion of the Guru, Mind-seal Deity and Rare Sublime Ones,
May these pure extensive prayers be completed.

You can find the “Prayer Flag to Avert War” with Thang Thong Gyalpo’s “Prayer for Peace” in the FPMT Foundation Store, while supplies last:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Prayer-Flag-to-Avert-War_p_392.html

Many other prayer flags to send blessings out into the world are also available in the Foundation Store:
https://shop.fpmt.org/Prayer-Flags_c_159.html

This “Prayer for Peace” was originally posted by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, where you can read Rinpoche’s complete comments on it:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/prayer-peace

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche circumambulating Medicine Buddha statue at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Australia is experiencing what is becoming its worst fire season ever, affecting tens of thousands of people and countless animals.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has given advice on several occasions on practices to do in order to dispel and protect from fire, which can be found in the PDF “Practices and Advice to Dispel Fires.” This advice includes instruction on Medicine Buddha practice, White Umbrella practice, the Heart Mantra of Arya Vairochana, Kshitigarbha practice, Chenrezig practice, and more.

You can also find additional instruction on practice to do in Rinpoche’s short advice given in 2017 on California wildfires. The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive also has a page for Rinpoche’s advice on fires. 

A deer friend at Amitabha Buddha Pure Land in an area affected by past wildfires, Washington, US, 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice “Practices and Advice to Dispel Fires” can be found here: 
https://fpmt.org/wp-content/uploads/teachers/zopa/advice/Fires-Practices-for-dispelling-1.pdf

Find links to recordings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings from Nepal, Russia, Singapore, Latvia, France, and more:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la offering a khata at Boudha Stupa, Nepal, November 2019. Photo by Harald Weichhart.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the following advice to Dharma centers on what to do when experiencing difficulties.

When your luck/controlling power is down, then obstacles come. (You are blamed for things even if you haven’t done them.) To make life easy, it is very important to have pujas for protection performed. Otherwise, problems come one after another. You may receive a lot of complaints from people. This also depends on how much luck/controlling power the center’s leader/director has. For the center to receive help means that it needs the karma to receive help; a lot depends on the leader, too.

Buddhism is full of methods to protect from obstacles, so we can use those. If something is beyond people’s intelligence, they can’t do anything; they can only do things if they know what to do.

It is good if centers can do things such as Medicine Buddha and Tara puja. I have been saying how Medicine Buddha puja is very powerful for success. Also, they must do regular protector prayers.

The most important thing for success is devotion and compassion—this is the cause for harmony. That is the best puja. Compassion for others cuts down on problems, and people will help you.

Devotion collects so much merit; good samaya leads to inner and outer prosperity; there is the wisdom to discriminate what is right, and everything goes well.

For example, in the USA, there are so many religions, but when problems occur, they don’t use religion, they just use politics, not spirituality. We are a Dharma organization so there is so much that you can do. Some centers have a resident teacher who can do divinations and analysis and give spiritual support to the center through practices and pujas—at the beginning of each year, like in the monasteries, or every six months is best. If some problems are about to come which you can’t predict, it is better to do pujas every six months (like Geshe Lama Konchog used to advise, and Kopan Monastery does). This will reduce problems and bring more peace.

Some things are very simple, like making a tea offering, but it can still help a lot.

From the advice “Protection from Obstacle,” given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and published on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/protection-obstacles

Links to watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s live teachings currently taking place at Kopan Monastery in Nepal:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Find links to recordings of Rinpoche’s recent teachings from Nepal, Russia, Singapore, Latvia, France, and more:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche during a visit to the Caspian Sea to bless all the beings in the sea, Russia, October 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

This year, the holiday of Thanksgiving is celebrated in the United States on Thursday, November 28. Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered the following advice on how to help the tens of millions of turkeys being killed for the holiday. (For the most up to date version of this advice, please see the page “Prayers and Practices to Do for Turkeys at Thanksgiving”.)

My dear students and dear friends who want to help all sentient beings and, in particular, the animals that are killed, specifically all the turkeys killed during Thanksgiving,

Approximately forty-six million turkeys are killed for Thanksgiving, and then also approximately twenty-two million turkeys are killed for Christmas.

My suggestion on how we can benefit the turkeys is to recite the Five Powerful Mantras:

1. Mantra of Kunrig
2. Stainless Pinnacle Lotus Mantra
3. Stainless Beam Mantra (recite one mala of this main mantra)
4. Mantra of Buddha Mitrugpa
5. Stainless Lotus Pinnacle Mantra of Amoghapasha

Extra mantras you can recite:

1. the Chenrezig mantra (short)
2. the Namgyalma mantra (short)

If you can, recite each mantra twenty-one times, or as many times as you like. You can also recite the OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ mantra (Chenrezig mantra), which, of course, contains all the entire Buddhadharma. If you can, recite one mala of OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ—or if you want to recite more, that is even better. Then, as well as the Five Powerful Mantras, you can also recite the Namgyalma mantra.

I checked many mantras to see what would benefit the turkeys, but the other mantras did not come out. According to my observation, the main mantra to recite is the Stainless Beam Mantra. This is what comes out most beneficial for the turkeys. It says in the Kangyur that if you recite the Stainless Beam Mantra seventy times, if a being has been born in the lower realms, they will definitely get liberated from there.

So, please, if you can, recite one mala of the Stainless Beam Mantra dedicated to the turkeys killed for Thanksgiving and also for Christmas.

You can visualize that nectar beams, like sun beams, are emitted from the deity to you and to every sentient being, and in particular to the turkeys. The beams totally illuminate you, your family, and all sentient beings, and in particular the turkeys. Keep reciting the mantra with this visualization.

Recite it with strong concentration and an undistracted mind. Don’t recite the mantra with your mind thinking about the beach or sightseeing in the mountains, such as Mount Everest.

You can also recite the mantras and dedicate for the people who kill the turkeys.

You can think that you yourself are the turkeys that are going to be killed. Think of yourself in that situation. How would you feel? From that, you will then understand the incredible urgency to have someone help you and pray for you. You will then understand how important that is.

Feel this need for the prayers very strongly. And not only for all the turkeys killed this year at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but also, in general, for all animals that are killed. So many animals are killed—an unbelievable, unbelievable amount. The need for prayers for them is so urgent.

You can also use these mantras in your everyday life when you want to pray for people or animals who have died. It’s very important to know and become familiar with these mantras.

Please recite the mantras with strong bodhichitta.

Thank you very much. Sorry for making my noise, like buzzing in your ear. Thank you very much for your patience.

With much love and prayers,

Lama Zopa

Scribed by Ven. Holly Ansett, Singapore, November 26, 2019; edited by Ven. Ailsa Cameron. Lightly edited for inclusion on FPMT.org.

Five Powerful Mantras and the Namgyalma Mantra

1. Mantra of Kunrig

OṂ NAMO BHAGAVATE / SARVA DURGATI PARIŚHODHANA RĀJĀYA / TATHĀGATĀYA / ARHATE SAṂYAKSAṂBUDDHAYA / TADYATHĀ / OṂ ŚHODHANE / ŚHODHANE / SARVA PĀPAṂ VIŚHODHANE / ŚHUDDHE VIŚHUDDHE / SARVA KARMA AVARANA VIŚHUDDHE SVĀHĀ

2. Stainless Pinnacle Lotus Mantra

OṂ NAMAS TRAIYADHVIKĀNĀṂ / SARVA TATHĀGATA HRĪDAYA GARBHE JVALA JVALA / DHARMADHATU GARBHE / SAMBHARA MAMA ĀYUḤ SAṂŚHODHAYA MAMA SARVA PĀPAṂ / SARVA TATHĀGATA SAMANTOṢHṆĪṢHĀ VIMALE VIŚHUDDHE HUṂ HUṂ HUṂ HUṂ / AṂ VAṂ SAṂ JA SVĀHĀ

3. Stainless Beam Mantra

OṂ SARVA TATHĀGATA MALA VIŚHODHAṆI RUDDHA / VOLA PRATI SAṂKARA / TATHĀGATĀ / DHATU DHARE / SAṂDHARA SAṂDHARA / SARVA TATHĀGATA ADHIṢHṬHĀNA ADHIṢHṬHITE SVĀHĀ

4. Mantra of Buddha Mitrugpa

NAMO RATNA TRAYĀYA / OṂ KAṂKANI KAṂKANI / ROCHANI ROCHANI / TROTANI TROTANI / TRĀSANI TRĀSANI / PRATIHANA PRATIHANA / SARVA KARMA PARAṂ PARĀṆIME SARVASATVA NAÑCHA SVĀHĀ

5. Stainless Lotus Pinnacle Mantra of Amoghapasha

OṂ PADMO UṢHṆĪṢHA VIMALE HŪṂ PHAṬ

6. Namgylama Mantra (short)

OṂ BHRŪṂ SVĀHĀ / OṂ AMṚITA ĀYUR DADE SVĀHĀ

Peas, a 39-pound (18-kilogram) Broad Breasted White turkey from Huron, South Dakota, poses after being chosen for pardoning at the 2018 National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation in Washington, DC. Photo by Unnamed White House staffer – Official White House social media: https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1065045640122642432, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74554246

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

For more mantras and resources for mantra recitation, visit FPMT Education Services’ page on mantras:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/mantras/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Amitabha Buddha Festival, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington State, US, August 2019. Photo by Chris Majors.

In a phone conversation with a student, Lama Zopa Rinpoche made these comments on how to resolve conflicts with other disciples of one’s guru, giving this advice for ridding oneself of past and present grudges by changing one’s own mind.

I have been wanting to tell you this for some time. There may have been something between you and that person before, some time ago, but now I want you to change your view of her and become harmonious with her. Change your view from your old way of looking at her and instead look at her with an open heart, seeing her as one of the pores of the guru.

The expression “pore of the guru” refers to the way in which one should regard anyone related to the guru, that is, as an integral part that is indivisible from the guru, to which consequently one should pay the same respect as to the very guru. If you do that, then she will change her way of looking at you. She won’t see you in the old way any more either, and the problem will go away.

Then, in the future, when there are differences of opinion, of course it is OK to present your ideas to her so that she has many ways of looking at things. But do so with an open heart and with love, concern, and a wish to help, without getting upset. Always view her with an open heart, as one of the pores of the guru. Then there won’t be any problems.

It’s the same with people you may be upset with now. Remember they have been very kind to you in the past. They have helped you a lot. Because of them, you have been able to experience and finish up so much of your own negative karma from the past.

Therefore, you should view them as one of the pores, and with an open heart, apologize for any difficulties in the past and thank them for all their kindness to you. This way, when you change your view of others, they can also change.

This advice “Conflicts with Fellow Students” was originally published in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/conflicts-fellow-students

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings streaming live from Russia:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/lama-zopa-rinpoche-live/

Find video and audio recordings and transcripts of Rinpoche’s recent teachings at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/amitabha-buddhist-center-singapore-2019/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching in Madrid, Spain, April 2019. Photo by Alexis Roitmann.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered advice to a studious former monk who wrote to Rinpoche about receiving criticism and abuse from people. Here’s an excerpt from Rinpoche’s advice:

Every day, in the morning, when you begin the day, please remember emptiness. Everything is empty: I, action, and object. You can recite the Heart Sutra and the quotations below.

If you can, remember them in your daily life again and again. When you open the door, when the day begins, while seeing the reality of phenomena or the reality of life, recite and meditate on the meaning of these words.

These are Buddha’s words from the Sutra of the King of Concentration:

As in the clear sky, the moon rises,
the reflection appears in the ocean,
but there is no transfer of the moon into the water:
All phenomena should be known to be of that nature.

The magician transforms the forms
Of various phenomena, like a horse carriage and an elephant,
but there is nothing there as it appears:
All phenomena should be known to be like that.

Exactly as when following sexual pleasure in a dream,
after the person wakes up, they cannot see it,
like an immature person who is extremely attached to sexual pleasures:
All phenomena should be known like that.

Exactly as in the dream of a young girl
Of giving birth to a son who died,
so happy to have given birth, but unhappy that he died:
All phenomena should be known like that.

Exactly like the nighttime moon
that appears in the water, calm and clear,
but the moon on the water is empty, you cannot catch it:
All phenomena should be known like that.

Exactly as at noon in autumn,
people tormented with thirst
see a mirage as water:
All phenomena should be known like this.

A mirage has no water.
Sentient beings are dying of thirst and desire to drink
but are unable to drink that water, which does not exist:
All phenomena should be known like that.

Exactly like the water tree:
even if a person wishes to take the essence from it,
a person splits that tree, there is no essence at all, no nectar inside or outside:
All phenomena should be known like that.

Also, it is good if you can recite the verses in the Thirty-Seven Practices of the Bodhisattva on emptiness, by the bodhisattva Thogme Zangpo.

Various sufferings appear in hallucinations, like a son who dies in a dream:
by holding it to be true, one suffers.
Therefore, when you encounter disharmonious conditions (that is, conditions not according to your wish, unfavorable conditions)
Looking at them as an illusion is the practice of the son of the bodhisattvas.

You are a very philosophical person. I am sure I don’t need to explain this to you. I am sure your mind is always this way, but I will explain it anyway.

The way to meditate on the first stanza is this: The meaning is that ignorance leaves imprints that are impure on the mental continuum. Like the moon reflecting on the ocean, those imprints project hallucinated appearances, truly existent appearances. They project all the hallucinations that appear, appearing as truly existent, on the merely labeled phenomena—I, action, object, happiness, suffering, virtue, non-virtue—whatever exists.

Including the mind as well as its object—the perceiver/knower, or mind, and its object—these look or appear like they are there, but they are not there. A truly existent real knower or perceiver, the mind and object, look like they are there, but they are not there.

In reality, everything is empty. Therefore, in reality all that is appearing as real is appearances, but is totally non-existent, empty.

All that appears to be real, inherently existent, in our daily life, this inherently existent phenomenon or real phenomenon, is totally non-existent. The way phenomena appear should be understood as non-existent, totally non-existent.

Therefore, all phenomena—I, action, object—all the phenomena that exist, are empty. They are empty from their own side. They are empty from their own side because all these phenomena exist by being merely labeled.

For the rest of the stanzas, you can get the basic idea from this explanation. Then all day you can laugh about your own life, your own beliefs, own fears, and grasping. You can laugh even when you are alone in your room. You can laugh twenty-four hours a day about your own life. You can laugh in the kitchen making tea. You can laugh in the shop. You can laugh in your bedroom, when you’re asleep, everywhere. You can laugh when you feel depressed. You can laugh when you feel excited.

The second part is thought transformation, how to meditate on emptiness during the meditation break and to look at all phenomena during break times like a dream. That means looking at the object of the knower as empty—not true: empty. Examining the nature of unborn wisdom—that is wisdom meditating on the emptiness of that—free even of the remedy itself.

Even the remedy, even emptiness itself, has no inherent existence, it is free of that. Look at emptiness itself as empty of inherent existence. This could also be related to the self, the person, the meditator, to oneself, as also empty.

Place the mind in the state of the base, which is the essence of the path. In the break time, be the illusory person. …

This advice “How to Use Criticism and Unfavorable Situations on the Path” was originally published in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/how-use-criticism-and-unfavorable-situations-path

Watch short video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/videos-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the Amitabha Buddha festival at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, US, August 2019. Photo by Chris Majors.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the following advice on the shortcomings of the self-cherishing thought and the benefits of cherishing others to a student and said it is applicable to anyone.

If you are my student, then you must do the morning motivation, The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment). Do not just read the words, but relate them to your life. You must recite these words and if after reciting the words your mind doesn’t change, then you are not doing it [correctly].

In addition, I want you to recite these two verses as a dedication and to memorize them:

Whenever someone has an angry or devotional thought arise
Just by looking at me,
May that attitude alone become a cause that always
Accomplishes all the temporary and ultimate purposes of that being.

Whenever others criticize me with their speech,
Harm me with their bodies,
Or likewise insult me behind my back,
May all of them be fortunate to achieve great enlightenment.

You must recite these two verses and if these don’t change your mind, then you are not thinking about the meaning. Therefore, use these two verses often as your dedication. This is most important to recite; it’s good to recite and to remember by heart.

You need to remember that you yourself have harmed numberless sentient beings from beginningless rebirths numberless times. You have given every kind of harm numberless times to the numberless sentient beings. Now what you experience—the way others harm you, the way they treat you, anything unpleasant—is the result of your negative karma. So you have to recognize the shortcomings of your self-cherishing thought.

As the Kadampa geshe says:

Put all the blame to one. Toward others, meditate on their kindness.

Put all the blame to one—this is the self-cherishing thought. Even if someone sees you and dislikes you, thinks you are bad, or if anyone criticizes you or kicks you out of a center and so on, think it is the result of past karma, because you harmed others, numberless sentient beings, numberless times from beginningless rebirth.

Anything unpleasant you receive back is the result of your bad karma, your self-cherishing thought. This is what is to be abandoned in order to actualize bodhicitta.

In my morning motivation, it mentions, May I be used by sentient beings. This means you dedicate yourself to be the servant of sentient beings, to be totally used by sentient beings. This is what makes you achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. Otherwise if you have too much ego, then you go to hell. If that is what you want, if you want that, then it is a totally different situation; if you would like to go to hell. But if you don’t like to go to hell, then you need to change the mind, to renounce the ego.

As the Kadampa Geshe mentions, the self-cherishing thought is something to be thrown away—a long distance—immediately. But others are to be taken into your heart and cherished immediately.

With much love and prayers…

This advice “Renounce the Ego” was originally published in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/renounce-ego

Find links to the free practice booklet The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) with Additional Practices in multiple languages and to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s commentary on it on FPMT Education Services “Prayers & Practices” page:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/#themethod

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Geshe Lamsang at O.Sel.Ling Centro de Retiros, Spain, May 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered the following advice “Problems at a Dharma Center” to the director of a Dharma center who was having problems with his assistant and thinking about asking the assistant to leave. Here’s an excerpt from that advice:

One way you can look at the situation is to think that the center just cannot exist without these difficulties. There is collective karma, and without these difficulties, it would not be able to offer extensive benefits to so many sentient beings every year, giving Dharma education in sutra and tantra, and planting the seed of the four kayas, liberation, and enlightenment, and leading sentient beings to a good rebirth in their next life.

The center offers unbelievable benefits. The geshe, translator, director, assistant, secretary, bookkeeper, cook, and cleaner’s main function is to bring the teachings to others, making the center available for sentient beings to come there to practice, collect merit, and plant the seed of enlightenment. All the members of the center are offering this benefit to sentient beings. This cannot happen without collective karma. Problems occur because collective negative karma ripens and individual karma ripens, so we experience these things while we are offering extensive benefit to others.

You can make an analogy with the body and ornaments on the body. These difficulties are the ornaments. This means you can use these difficulties to overcome your own delusions, ego, and self-cherishing thought. These difficulties destroy one’s delusions and ego, like in chöd practice. In chöd, you invoke spirits to create violence, a disturbing violent environment, and that makes the thought of self-cherishing stronger, the feeling that something is going to happen to me, to the “I.” The main thing is to see the emotional “I,” the false “I,” the object to be refuted, the “I” which is a hallucination, the “I” which doesn’t exist, as the object of the root of samsara—the concept of inherent existence. The minute you recognize it is the minute to realize emptiness.

Why this is so important, such a big deal, and is talked about so much in the teachings of Buddha is that without this realization of emptiness, you have no way to escape the ocean of suffering. Humans, asura, sura, hell beings, animals, and pretas have all been reincarnating in these realms up to now, from beginningless time, because of delusion and karma. We are still wandering in the six realms, and suffer without end. That means we can’t liberate other sentient beings from the suffering of samsara, the suffering of contaminated aggregates.

All the problems of the center are the same as in chöd practice. Here, without your putting effort into it, it just happens, the disturbed violent environment arises. So, it is a very good opportunity to realize emptiness and destroy the ego, the self-cherishing thought.

It is the same as in the text The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, when you use difficulties to cut the demon of your self-cherishing thought. It is also mentioned in A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life that when people have scars from having fought in a war, they see those scars not as something ugly, but as an ornament, a special sign that they have been brave. They are proud of those scars. So, like that, you can use the problems in the center as a challenge to vanquish the self-cherishing thought and ignorance, the concept of true existence, the unknowing mind. …

Read the complete advice “Problems at a Dharma Center” in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/problems-dharma-center

Watch short video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/videos-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche circumambulating the stupa at O.Sel.Ling Centro de Retiros, Spain, May 2019. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave advice on how to utilize difficulties on the path to enlightenment to a student who had written to him about relationship problems.

All the problems are very good because they purify negative karma accumulated in the past. Those difficulties and problems in your life purify the very heavy negative karmas collected in many lifetimes in the past. By purifying that, you will experience much happiness in the future like the sun shining; therefore it’s positive.

Remember you have received many teachings for a long time and especially chöd practice. Chöd should not be just chanting, but the practice. It is especially for dealing with all these problems that you are experiencing, so you utilize the difficulties as the quickest way to achieve enlightenment for yourself and to free the numberless sentient beings from oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to peerless happiness, the state of omniscience.

Lama Chopa [v. 103]:

Should even all the beings of the three realms without exception
Become angry at me, humiliate, criticize, threaten, or even kill me,
I seek your blessings not to be agitated, but to complete the perfection of patience
That works for their benefit in response to their harm.

The essence is explained in Lama Chopa [v. 96]:

Even if the environment and beings are filled with the fruits of negativity,
And unwished for sufferings pour down like rain,
I seek your blessings to take these miserable conditions as a path
By seeing them as causes to exhaust the results of my negative karma.

Please take time to think about the meaning of these verses.

This advice “How Problems Purify Past Negative Karma” was originally published in “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website:
https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/how-problems-purify-past-negative-karma

Find complete videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent teachings:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Nalanda Monastery, Labastide St. Georges, France, May 2019. Photo by Nicolas Balthazar.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche dictated this advice during a Light of the Path retreat and had it distributed to the retreat participants. Rinpoche then also wanted it shared with people offering service at FPMT centers, projects, and service as well as with all beings everywhere.

How to Make Your Life Most Beneficial for Sentient Beings, Even with Your Speech

Freeing them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bringing them to the peerless happiness of buddhahood—the total cessation of all obscurations and the completion of all realizations

It all depends on your motivation. If you are motivated by the self-cherishing thought, concern for only your own happiness, your own power, and have no concern for others’ happiness, your motivation is coming from your delusions, such as attachment, anger, ignorance, and so forth. Then your actions of body, speech, and mind will manifest as ugly, unpeaceful, and hurtful to others and, as a result, others will react in an ugly, unpeaceful, and hurtful way with their body, speech, and mind; for example, by getting angry at you. It is like a circle. How you treat others and how they treat you in return is similar, with such negative thoughts and actions. You have to be fully aware of that in your everyday life.

Generally you have to know that you are responsible to not cause others suffering but to bring them happiness. Even if you don’t think of practicing Dharma, to at least be a good human being you need to know this. You are totally responsible as to whether you bring happiness or suffering to others. It is totally dependent on your motivation and how you treat others; it’s up to you whether your motivation is pure or not. Even just to be a good person, a generous human being, you have to know that. If you have a bad motivation and your actions of body, speech, and mind are harmful for others, you make others create negative karma when they retaliate by harming you in return. By harming others you therefore cause them to be reborn in the lower realms; to lose their human rebirth and take a lower rebirth and suffer for eons. Can you imagine yourself being in the lower realms? That’s where you’re causing other sentient beings to go and have unhappiness instead of enjoyment.

In the Bodhicaryavatara, Shantideva said,

Smiling at others (showing them a pleasant face)
Causes you to have a beautiful body in future lives.

So you don’t need to have plastic surgery or other expensive procedures. Your positive mind can give you a pleasant, happy, smiling face and a peaceful, not a political, smile. Others will feel this and also become like that, having a good heart and being smiling and happy. Thus you always have to be aware of how others act toward you, positive or negative. It is totally dependent upon your own mind.

The morning motivation, the Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment), contains the details for keeping your mind positive. If you do this motivation every morning you will always act positively toward others for the rest of the day.

However, first think that all your past, present, and future happiness, including enlightenment, is received from every sentient being. You receive everything through the kindness of every sentient being, which includes even those people you don’t like—those who make you angry merely upon sight or when you hear their voice. It is so important to understand this evolution. Therefore you should hold all sentient beings in your heart and feel that they are most precious, most kind, most dear and wish fulfilling for you. Then there will be no way for your mind to get angry or to generate ignorance, attachment, selfishness, or self-cherishing, and therefore, no way for you to harm others. You absolutely dare not harm others, even in the slightest way.

Even Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—in whom you always take refuge to be free from the lower realms and get higher rebirths; to be free from samsara and achieve liberation, lower nirvana; and to be free from the self-cherishing thought and achieve the peerless happiness of total cessation of all mistakes and completion of all realizations—even this Buddha, Dharma, Sangha in whom you take refuge and who give you all this happiness come from sentient beings, including the ones who are angry at or who harm you, who speak to you hurtfully, and so forth, sentient beings that you don’t like. Therefore they are all so precious, unbelievably precious to you. On top of that, they have been your kind mother from beginningless rebirths and even now; it’s unbelievable. So you have to think about this and the dependent arising I mentioned before as well. Think about these two things—it makes not harming and only benefiting others very deep. In that way your life will be only of benefit.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche arriving at Nalanda Monastery, Labastide St. Georges, France, May 2019. Photo by Nicolas Balthazar.

The conclusion is that to be free from the suffering of samsara as quickly as possible and to achieve peerless happiness, the total cessation of all mistakes and the completion of all realizations, then with this thought, smile at others, respect them with your body, speech, and mind, and speak to them in a nice, respectful way.

Treat people the way you’d like them to treat you: with respect, nice speech, and smiles that come from a good heart. If you do that, then, as a result of karma, many others will treat you in the same way. Otherwise others will be angry with you, speak to you rudely and hurtfully, and harm you with the actions of their body, speech, and mind.

So here I am mentioning how sentient beings are most kind, most precious, most dear and wish fulfilling. Then you can really enjoy life with them, bring them much inner happiness, and in your own mind you will also enjoy much inner happiness, and that will make them happy too.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama respects even ordinary people. He bends down in respect; Lama Yeshe also did this. Even when he heard about someone’s mistakes, some problems with monks, and so forth, when he later met them he showed respect. Like that, this is an incredible practice, rather than feeling pride, showing arrogance, and putting others down. Most people might do that, but in my experience, Lama Yeshe never did.

Behaving like this is a great, great, great responsibility of the center director, secretary, board members, office manager, treasurer, spiritual program coordinator, bookshop manager, and so forth. Especially these people, but in general, this is for everybody. It’s a question of karma, to not create negative karma and to create good karma. This not only makes you happy but also makes other sentient beings happy. So even with your speech you can make so many sentient beings happy. …

Read Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s complete advice “How to Make Your Life Most Beneficial for Sentient Beings, Even with Your Speech“:

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.